Pocket Dictionary 1.2 now available

It appears I had accidentally broken Windows Mobile 2003 support with Pocket Dictionary 1.1. This new version fixes that. Pocket Dictionary 1.2 works on Windows Mobile 2003 and up.

Pocket Dictionary 1.2 is mostly a bugfix release. Besides the Windows Mobile 2003 bug, it has a few other minor fixes. See the Change Log for full details.

One important change: Pocket Dictionary now requires the .Net Compact Framework 3.5. It will not work on 2.0 anymore! The main reason for this change is because it fixes a bug with the ComboBox control that was preventing the context menu (with the cut/copy/paste options) from working correctly on the search field. Make sure you install the new Compact Framework before installing Pocket Dictionary.

Comments

Brendan S

2008-01-21 08:16 UTC

Hi I just happened upon your website by chance. The software that you have on here is exactly what I'm looking for. I would like to use a PDA as an English-Japanese dictionary. I'm currently looking at PDA's right now and am thinking about picking up an HP Ipaq 110 or 210 which comes with Windows 6 Classic. Would Classic be compatible with your software?

Sven Groot

2008-01-21 08:28 UTC

Hi Brendan,Windows Mobile 6 Classic should be compatible (as I don't have either device I cannot guarantee it, but I've tested in the Windows Mobile 6 Classic emulator and that works). Pocket Dictionary only doesn't work on Smartphones (without a touch screen), which is Windows Mobile 6 Standard. Both Classic and Professional should work fine.

Looking at your choices, I would recommend the iPAQ 210 if you can afford it. It has a 480x640 pixels display (192DPI) and the extra resolution really pays off in readability, even more so with Japanese fonts.

jiaheng

2008-01-27 12:07 UTC

hi i was initially using the old pocket dictionary which was using wm2003se and it works fine and great thank you. but now i've change my phone to a htc tytn II with wm6 pro. it somehow manage to start the program but with error therefore. the program request for a stop before i could start to use it.

i hope this piece of information is useful for your further development.

jiaheng

2008-01-27 12:08 UTC

hi i was initially using the old pocket dictionary which was using wm2003se and it works fine and great thank you. but now i've change my phone to a htc tytn II with wm6 pro. it somehow manage to start the program but with error therefore. the program request for a stop before i could start to use it.

i hope this piece of information is useful for your further development.

Hamid Abassalty

2008-02-28 05:27 UTC

I also have the same problem as above (similar device Hermes 200/Tytn/ actually X01HT.I have managed to get the program to work once though if you want to try.following these steps 1.hard reset/clean install of WM 6 radio). 2. Instal .Net Compact Framework 3.5.3. Install of Japnease fonts as explained on this site.4. Install of The kanji input from this site I dont know why it doesnt work without this, or why it did with it).

Unfortunately as I need to use Japanese on my English OS. device the kanji input and font are not enough for me so I have other japanese enabling software installed (to read mail and other documents).With my current setup The program installs ok but launches with a whole list of errors. I have been unable to get it to work since.

Even on WM5 Japanese version, the software only worked for a short period of time (v.1.1 and 1.2) before becomimg unstable/ unusable/ crashing WM 5, requiring hard resetting, reinstalling and going through the cycle again and again.

Its a shame because it is an excellent piece of software if/when it works. Despite its simplicity it can do much more than proprietry software form some companies. The only issue is reliability, otherwise Im sure people would be willing to buy this.Please please develop it so it works properly. I really want to have this software!

Sven Groot

2008-03-17 06:57 UTC

Hamid, I'm sorry you're having so much trouble with Pocket Dictionary. Unfortunately, as I cannot reproduce the issues, I also cannot fix them. Pocket Dictionary doesn't exhibit any instability on my own Windows Mobile 5 device, nor does it have any problems on the emulators for WM2003, WM5 and WM6.

Since I cannot know what causes the issues on your device (I would guess it's some kind of modification made to WM by the creator of your device), I also cannot fix them, unless you can provide me with more detailed information.

Emmett

2008-05-12 15:35 UTC

I have been using Pocket Dictionary for a while and it works great. The one issue I have is this - if I don't start up the Japanese Input right away, I can't get it to load later. In other words, my device defaults to the soft keyboard. If I change the input method to "Japanese Input" nothing happens. If I could figure out how to hack the registry to make Japanese Input the default, that would be an acceptable workaround for the issue. However, I can't figure that out either. Let me know if anyone else has this problem or if there is a solution.

Thanks for the hard work!

-Emmett

Colby Weinhofer

2008-08-07 23:42 UTC

Sven,

Thanks so much for your work on the Pocket Dictionary & Japanese Input. It has been really great to have language tools like this on my PocketPC.

One thing I can’t figure out is whether there is a way to change how the program sorts search results. Maybe it is there and I am just missing it. Currently it seems to be sorting alphabetically. This means the most intuitive and / or common entries don’t always come first. With the PocketPC’s small screen and few buttons, this can make quick and efficient lookups a problem.

The program I use on my laptop (JWPce - http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/jwpce.html) gives the option to sort using EDICT’s priority markers, which seems to work pretty well. Although it is not nearly as easy to use on the PocketPC as Pocket Dictionary, the JWPce is installable on Windows Mobile OS. If this is sort feature not present in Pocket Dictionary and you would consider adding it, Glenn might be able to share some code to get you headed in the right direction.

Anyway, thanks again for you hard work.

Colby

eer

2009-01-05 16:05 UTC

Great work. It's a shame it don't work with accentuated letetrs like "é à è" though : (

Jason

2009-05-30 16:27 UTC

Do you think you can make a quick release with a longer display for wvga resolutions?

Thanks for the great software :)

Luna

2009-09-10 17:19 UTC

A really great and helpful programm. (In fact I bought myself a PDA just to be able to use it.)

I just noticed that on my PDA (Touch Dual, WM 6), the japanese fonts won't show outside PocketDictionary. Inside it works perfectly fine, just outside it has a bit of trouble.I installed Ce-Star and that supports displaying the fonts outside, even after the trial period, through it now always asks for registering upon starting... (Which is a bit annoying.)

Still a very helpful programm!I wish there would be something just as fine for Chinese.

James

2009-10-29 14:59 UTC

Colby, you said exactly what I was thinking.

If you search for "like" you get over 100 results and it can take 20 minutes of hunting to find the definition. There must be a way to make a simple definition the first entry and leave the idioms and usage and Katata stuff at the bottom.

It must be there, but I haven't found it yet.

James

2009-10-29 15:05 UTC

This helps, but it doesn't sort the results. It hides most of the results:

"To improve the display of search results, you can select one of the display formats, Edict, Kanjidic or Kanjidic (filtered). Please make sure the format selected matches the format of the dictionary, otherwise the results will not be displayed correctly. The Kanjidic (filtered) format will remove most of the Kanjidic's information fields which most people would not normally be interested in."

shorto

2009-12-22 17:39 UTC

Hey!

1st let me start of by saying this is a really awesome program! I just got one question I can't pick where to install the dictionaries to and my OMNIA doesn't have enough internal space (on the partition where Windows are installed) to install all the dictionaries. Do you perhaps know a sulution to this? Here are some screenshots to perhaps better expalin;

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/3668/screenshot2pb.jpg(If we start here as you see Edicts is already installed but on the internal memory)

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/6292/screenshot3md.jpg(cannot even pick the folder where edict is already installed)

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/3747/screenshot4vp.jpg(cannot pick a new foder)

As you can see I cannot even "confirm" the folder that your program automatically installs the directories to and I cannot confirm any other folder for that matter. Any ideas?

Sven Groot

2009-12-23 11:26 UTC

Hello,

Thank you for using Pocket Dictionary. On the screens you show have to pick a file, not a folder. The easiest solution for your problem is to manually copy the edict and edict.jdx files to the new location (using File Explorer). Then use the dialog to select the new files (make sure both the dictionary and index file paths are changed). You can then delete the files from the old location.

Alternatively, remove the EDICT dictionary from the list of dictionaries, and run the Configuration Wizard again (Menu, Options, Configuration Wizard). From that wizard you can download the dictionary again and specify where it should be saved.

Jess

2011-03-12 05:32 UTC

Hi, thanks for the software!

I am trying to install this on a Samsung Omnia 2, Win6.5 platform. I have Net CF 3.5 installed, but I can't seem to download the dictionaries. Everytime I run the Configuration Wizard, I check the boxes for the dictionaries I want and then it says "unable to connect to the remote server".